14 Ways to Reduce Your Site's Bounce Rate

I've often looked at bounce rates and associated metrics as a way to measure the general stickiness and appeal of a website. In my case, this has normally been blogs and publishers' sites, but the principle applies generally. 

Here are several suggestions for ways to keep visitors from leaving your site and enticing them to stick around and view more pages. 

What are bounce rates?

Bounce rates tell you what percentage of people left a given page on your website without viewing any other pages. It’s not to be confused with exit rates, which simply tell you the percentage of visitors that left the site from a page (i.e. they may have viewed other pages first).

Also, it’s important to be aware that users could spend 10 minutes on your page before they leave the site. 

In this scenario, it could well be that the page has fulfilled its purpose (or that the user has just forgotten to close it).

What do bounce rates tell you?  

It’s generally used, along with other metrics, as a measure of a site’s ‘stickiness’.

For example, on SEW, I’d like people to click on a link from search, Twitter or some other referral source, find a useful article, then decide to browse further and view all of our other lovely content.

If bounce rates are high, it could mean that our content isn’t doing its job properly, though there are plenty of other possible explanations.

As a rule, I’d generally look at trends over time, and use bounce rates as one of several metrics for measuring the success of a particular page.

For example, this Google Analytics custom segment looking at the percentage of visitors viewing multiple pages provides a measure of a site’s ability to retain users’ interest beyond the page they land on.

Other measures, such as average time on page or using event tracking to see how many people read to the bottom of your posts (as described here by Justin Cutroni) can also help. 

Still, the principle is important. If you’re the kind of site that wants people to stick around for a while, bounce rates provide a good general guide.

What exactly a good bounce rate is will depend on the type of site you’re running.

Working in online publishing, my experience is that bounce rates for articles can be as low as 40% and as high as 98% for individual articles. The average would vary between 70% and 85%; obviously I’m aiming for nearer 70%.

The Google Analytics screenshot below shows some of the more 'evergreen' articles we've published. As we can see, the bounce rates for such articles are lower than the average, which is nearer 80%. 

Is a high bounce rate always a bad thing?

In a word, no. It can depend very much on the purpose of the website.

For example, people may want to quickly find a contact number or check facts. If the site enables them to find this information easily, they’ll leave quickly, thus pushing up the bounce rates.

I may need to know how old Al Pacino is (as you do). I can Google his name, click on Wikipedia, and the information is instantly available on the right of the page. Then I hit the back button.

Of course, I could linger longer, read more and click some of the links, but if that’s all I want to know, I’m playing a small part in increasing the site’s bounce rates.

For publishers like Search Engine Watch, we’d rather keep people on the site longer so, if someone clicks on the page, decides they’d rather not read the article in question and leaves, then that may mean we haven’t delivered on their expectations.

In the latter case, high bounce rates are a bad thing.

The relationship between bounce rates and SEO

Of course, Google doesn’t know your bounce rates, though it theoretically can find this information from the millions of sites that use Google Analytics.

In theory it would be a useful ranking factor, as it is an indication of how relevant your landing page is to the user’s search query, though allowances would have to be made for the type of site and query.

If someone wants a guide to landing page design and bounces within seconds we can assume the page hasn’t delivered. However, if they just wanted to quickly check the weather for today, then maybe it has served its purpose.

The concept of dwell time, or the 'long click' (as explained here by Bill Slawski) is important. It’s similar to - but not the same as - bounce rates. It’s essentially a measure of how long a user spends on a page before returning to the search results page.

Whether this is a ranking factor or not is open to debate, but it certainly makes sense in the light of Google's search for quality signals.

In essence, it works like this: 

• If a user clicks through from the SERPs onto a website and then spends some time there, it suggests that the result was relevant to the query and served its purpose. In this case, Google has done its job well in ranking said website highly. 
   
• If a user clicks through and then returns to the search results page quickly (or then selects another result) then it suggests the site has not been useful for the searcher. Therefore another site may usurp it in the rankings. 

Of course, this is a simplified version, and there are variables. For example, what if the site answered the query immediately (as in my Al Pacino example)? 

I would assume that Google would be able to find different metrics for different types of search query so that it could take account of this. 

How to reduce bounce rates or how to keep visitors on your site for longer

The following factors should help to reduce bounce rates, but also should serve to keep users on site for a longer period. Or at least remove factors which will make them leave the site.

Here we are, in no particular order...

1. Make sure your pages load quickly

No-one likes slow loading pages, so make sure yours run as fast as they can, on mobile and desktop.

The old rule of thumb from Jakob Nielsen was that users would wait two seconds for a page to load before abandoning the idea. Whatever the exact time, if a site feels slow to load, people will be thinking about bouncing.

This is important from a user experience perspective, but also forms part of Google’s mobile ranking factors. 

It looks like we have some work to do on that score... 

2. Give visitors all the information they may need

This is a point which perhaps applies to ecommerce more than other sites.

Let’s take an example from the travel sector. If you’re researching hotels to stay in, then the obvious destination for many web users is TripAdvisor.

There they can find (in theory) impartial views on the hotel which cut through the sales pitch on the hotel or travel agent’s website. However, once on TripAdvisor, they may be swayed by other hotels.

If you have reviews on site though, or have integrated TripAdvisor reviews on the page, then one reason to head elsewhere is removed.

Here, Best Western hotels show TripAdvisor reviews (good and bad) on hotel pages: 

3. Avoid clickbait 

Clickbait is commonplace now. In fact, it's hard to find a news publisher's site without this kind of garbage following articles. 

If you're foolish enough to click one of these links you'll find yourself on some of the worst sites on the web, full of pop-ups, pagination and lots of attempts to trick you into clicking on ads. There's also the question of why publishers would want to send their audiences there, but thats an issue for another article. 

Essentially, none of these posts are likely to deliver on the promise of the headline. The content needs to be relevant to the headline, or else people will bounce quickly. 

I'm not against lists or using headlines to attract clicks, which is why this article has the headline it does. It's just that headlines have to deliver on their promises. 

4. Avoid huge pop-ups and annoying ads

Serving users with a huge pop-up as soon as they enter the site is a great way to make them hit the back button. 

Likewise, intrusive rollover ads and autoplay audio are what make web users turn to adblockers. It will make many others bounce as soon as they reach your site. 

5. Use internal linking 

I've written about the use of internal linking as an SEO tactic, but it performs an important role in keeping people on site for longer. 

Providing users with links to other interesting articles which are relevant to the one which users are reading increases the likelihood that they'll hang around for longer, and reduces those bounce rates. 

6. Be careful with external links

I'm all for giving credit when its due when it comes to links, but if you add external links early in a post and don't open them in a new window, you're essentially asking users to your site and inflate your bounce rates. 

7. Do not use pagination

This could actually be posited as a way to reduce bounce rates, but I think the drawback of annoying users outweighs this particular aim. 

People can scroll, so there's no need to paginate. The only reason I can think of is to falsely inflate page views. 

8. Site design

Users will form an opinion of your site the minute they land on it, and much of this is down to the design. 

Your search result or tweet may have convinced them to click, but bad design (or at least design that doesn't appeal to the visitor) can convince them to leave. 

For example, an ecommerce site should convey a certain level of professionalism if you're asking users to trust their credit card details to you. 

This site may sell the very best gates and fences, but the design doesn't exactly convey professionalism. It's also very hard to read. 

(Hat tip to Branded3 for the example.) 

9. Article formatting

This is very important. Just as people make quick judgements based on site design, they'll also look at the article or page they clicked on and wonder how much work it will be to read and consume. 

A wall of text with few paragraphs and no visual stimulus will deter many people just because it seemslike hard work to digest. 

On the other hand, if you have clear sub-headings, bullet points, images and charts, and bold text on key stats and points then it makes even longer articles seem more appealing. 

Of course, the content should deliver, but first impressions matter in this respect. 

10. Mobile-friendly pages

An obvious point. If you want mobile users to stay a while on your site, then make sure it's mobile-optimized. 

11. Site search and navigation

Site search provides an easy navigation option for visitors.

On ecommerce sites, site search users often convert at higher than the average rate, as using it can indicate a greater intent to purchase. 

On other sites, search provides users with an alternative way to navigate through sites, one that some web users prefer. 

Give people easy and clear ways to navigate around your site. Make navigation intuitive and consistent. 

12. Related content recommendations

This is about giving people ideas for other content or pages based on the article they're reading. 

We use them here on SEW, based on the main topic. You'll see it down the page, between the author bio and the comments. 

This may not be the best example of content recommendation in action, but the idea of providing content relevant to the current article is a good one. 

13. Most read/commented boxes

This is another form of content recommendation, based on the articles being read or shared. Here's an example from the BBC:

We have something similar here, a trending posts box. You may or may not have noticed it... 

The point of these is that they give users further ideas for reading, whether looking at the posts with the largest number of comments, or those with most views. 

14. Make calls to action clear on landing pages

You have to make it clear where customers need to go next to buy a product, retrieve a quote, or whatever action you want them to take. 

Here are some general pointers: 

• Wording. The wording you use should make it obvious what will happen if a user presses a button, such as ‘Add to cart’ or ‘Checkout.’ 
• Colours. Test to see which colours work best. Contrast is key. Many sites tend to go for yellow or green, but what works for one site doesn’t necessarily work for another.
• Size. Make them big enough to be seen easily, but not too big. 
• Placement. Buttons should be placed where users’ eyes are likely to be as they scan around the page. 
• Adapt for different devices. Calls to action should work across various mobile devices as well as desktop. 
• Test. There are no right or wrong answers here. Wording, colour, shape, placement etc can all be tested to find what produces the best results. 

In summary

The tips here are a mixture of methods for persuading users to stay on your site longer, and to explore further. 

The latter is key to reduce bounce rates, as they need to interact with your site, but the page they land on creates that all-important first impression.

If the first page doesn't do its job in terms of delivering relevance to the user and avoiding obvious annoyances, then there's little chance users will want to stick around. 

Also, to repeat the earlier point. Bounce rates are useful, but only used alongside other metrics like time on page and viewers of multiple pages. 

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12 Reasons I Won’t Buy From Your Website

You’re wasting your money.

Every time you spend big on AdWords, SEO and social campaigns – it’s all pointless.

Because people are clicking, but your website is scaring them off.

First impressions count. In fact, research shows us that web design drives a whopping 94% of first impressions.

Bad design leads to lower trust and higher friction. This means, no matter how much traffic you drive to your site, if your design isn’t right, your leads will walk straight out the door.

Make your website earn its keep, put it to the litmus test of these common design mistakes.

Here are 12 common mistakes that mean people won’t buy from your website – you don’t have to be making them.

Mistake 1: Low quality visuals

I’ve seen thousands of websites in my online marketing career and most have something in common. They don’t sell. Rather they are simply online catalogues.

Here are some samples of what some study participants of the research Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites had to say about poorly designed sites:

• “[On] one of them I didn’t like the color of [it]. I couldn’t wait to get out. It was an insipid green backdrop. It just put me off reading it.”
• “There was nothing I liked about it at all. I didn’t like the colours, the text, the layout.”
• “I found the screen too busy. I couldn’t quite latch onto anything straight away.”

Take a look at this example of the Gordon Vet Hospital.

Before

The ‘before’ home page represents fairly typical mistakes. It’s a list of the services on offer—an online catalogue.

After

Notice the difference in the ‘after’ web design?  It uses real staff photos instead of dated stock images. There’s a call to action above the fold and solid reasons to choose Gordon Vet Hospital. And there’s a visual tour of the hospital facilities and staff, which encourages great impressions of a well-functioning medical centre.

Mistake 2: The site doesn’t appeal to the target Audience

Who is your target audience?

Do you sell to consultants, academics or truck drivers?

Now examine your website.

Does it speak to your demographic? Has it been translated into the same vernacular they use? Is it comfortably within their education level? Will the design, images and content appeal to them?

It’s unlikely that a truck driver will willingly read the Financial Review, or an MBA-graduate read a trucking magazine, so don’t try to make them.

Mistake 3: Content is stale and boring

Users spend roughly 5.59 seconds focusing on a site’s written content. These statistics come from eye-tracking studies conducted at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. This means you don’t have much time to capture a readers’ attention, so make sure that you write great stuff.

Have you ever scrolled to the bottom of a web page to where a copyright date is listed, and found that it’s outdated by a year, or two? It doesn’t offer much confidence that the company who owns the site is doing any recent business.

A website that’s outdated, or looks that way because of an outdated design is an instant turn off to clients. Ensure that your website is current by implementing the latest technology, refreshing existing copy regularly, and adding new, quality copy every week.

The ideal length of a blog post is claimed to be 7 minutes or 1,600 words according to research from Medium. However, this assumes it contains interesting, informative material.

Long stories or page content with rambling copy about how great you are without any proof or examples to back up your claims, tends to have the shelf-life appeal of a month-old cooked prawn left in the sun.

Mistake 4: Under-estimating the importance of the ‘About Us’ and ‘Contact Us’ pages

You’d be surprised at how many users check out your ‘About Us’ page. I used heatmaps to track users’ behaviours on our websites across 10 different industries and found that ‘About Us’ is one of the most visited pages on the website.

The ‘Contact Us’ page ranks almost on the same scale. Even if you run business from home, your website should have a phone number and email address for users to see and call or email. Having a simple web form without any basic contact information looks transient and suspicious.

If you look carefully at this example, you’ll see the tiny little yellow dots on each of the menu items of the Gordon Vet Hospital website. These are heatmaps that show the most visited option is ‘About Us’ and ‘Our Friendly Staff.’

Users do actually want to know more about you so showcase what you’ve got. If you have great staff, tell them. If you have high profile clientele, let them know.

This is a poor example of an ‘About Us’ page. It does not provide any ‘personable’ information. It doesn’t say who they are. It doesn’t say how they operate. If there was a heatmap indicating trust levels, and wouldn’t that be handy, this page would be colorless.

Mistake 5: The shopping cart doesn’t work properly

Have you ever personally bought something from your website?

How many steps were involved? If it was more than one, then it was too many.

In other words, your checkout should be a one pager. Requiring guests to sign up before they can check out, or even view the home page, is another turn-off.

You need to facilitate a checkout option for guests.

See below an example of a better way to do this – one page checkout process. It’s a website that Result Driven SEO built for Bean Offroad Camping.

Mistake 6: Your trust indicators are missing

When users first land on your website, they don’t know you, they don’t trust you, they might not even like you, so how can you expect them to buy products from you?

Missing contact information, bad reviews, and a lack of social proof can damage a user’s confidence in your brand.

Prior to doing business with your company most clients will cast their eyes over online reviews from third-party sites such as Trip Advisors, Google Plus Local or other local directories. These independent reviews carry a lot of weight on the ‘trust’ scales. It’s important to generate them, and to ensure they are positive. Set up Google Alerts to monitor what other people are saying about your business and address their comments immediately to manage your online reputation.

According to research on Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites participants mistrusted websites because of these elements.

• Busy or complex layouts
• Pop-up advertisements and flamboyant ads
• Small print that’s hard to read
• Boring web design/lack of colour
• Slow website intros and load times

Take a look at this example. How do you feel about doing business with Web Marketing Experts now?

On the flip side, noting company partners, media mentions, staff photographs, certifications and links to active social media accounts generates strong credibility for Delacon.

Mistake 7: Bad SEO

Bad SEO techniques can hurt your website and make it a complete waste of time.

Google will crack down on your website if it detects questionable practices such as links that are irrelevant to the website’s theme, keyword stuffing, cloaking, linking to irrelevant websites.

It will tighten the penalties and be harder on those who appear on guest blogs.

Mistake 8: Not being mobile friendly

Mobile search is the future and 72% of Consumers Want Mobile-Friendly Sites, Google Research indicated.

Image credit: Search Engine Watch

55% of respondents agreed, “A frustrating experience on a website hurts my opinion of the brand overall.”

So what, exactly, are consumers looking for in a website accessed from a mobile device?

• Site speed—loading time of 5 seconds or less
• Big, finger-friendly buttons
• Limited scrolling and pinching
• Quick access to business contact information
• “Click to call” access to phone the business
• One-direction scrolling, either horizontal or vertical, but not both.

In April this year Google’s MobileGeddon started penalising mobile-unfriendly websites. To examine if an individual page is mobile-friendly, go here or to check the status of your entire site, go here .

If your site’s pages aren’t mobile-friendly, Google warns there ‘may be’ (read ‘will be’) a significant decrease in mobile traffic from Google Search. But once your site becomes mobile-friendly, it will automatically re-process (i.e., crawl and index) your pages.

You can expedite this process here.

Mistake 9: Not having video to illustrate products

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is said to be worth a thousand pictures, or a million words.

Either way, video is powerful and provides a quick and easy way to impart a lot of information effectively and in a digestible format.

If I’m seeking a sales report extension for a Magento website, I am more likely to consider a provider offering a video that demonstrates how the extension works. See this blue ribbon example of an aheadWorks landing page for their Sales Report Extension. It offers video, demonstrations and plenty of reviews.

Your Google ranking for your website will be prioritised if it hosts a video, because Google now owns YouTube, so consider getting a 90-second corporate video to improve your SEO.

There’s a new breed of specialists emerging who do this quickly and cheaply. 

Mistake 10. Not having a clear value proposition

In a nutshell, a value proposition is a clear statement that:

• explains how your product solves customers’ problems or improves their situation (relevancy)
• delivers specific benefits (quantified value)
• explains why the customer should buy from you and not from the competition (unique differentiation).

Your value proposition should be the first thing visitors see on your home page, and on all major entry points of your website.

Good value proposition

Why this works

• It’s clear about what it is and for whom
• There is a specific lead paragraph
• Key features are outlined above the fold
• There’s a relevant image
• It features a booster – “100% rebrandable”

Bad value proposition

Why this doesn’t work

• It relies only on the video to do the job. Your value proposition should also be in words that people can read. Video supplements words, not replaces them.
• Awful clarity: “We’ll supercharge your website”? Nobody will understand what that means.

Mistake 11: Cheesy stock images

Example of Go Rapid’s cheesy stock image representing a movie-star good looking financial advisor who talks to a ‘bad credit car finance’ audience.

Example of Harley Finance using images that relate to their target audience—owner-drivers who might not have good financial resources.

Mistake 12: No available calls-to-action

You don’t want your website visitors to leave your website without doing anything. You need to at least capture their basic information so you can follow up.

You can do this by providing a free consultation or offering a great deal. Who doesn’t like free stuff, after all?

Techniques that entice visitors into signing up include:

• “Download a Free ebook”
• “Sign up for a webinar”
• “Talk to our sales team”
• “Request a demo”

You need to highlight the call to action you prefer users to take.

Two best practice examples of how to do this.

This landing page itself appeals to small-business owners by highlighting the benefits of using their product, namely being able to accept credit cards for transactions – something that was previously out of reach for many merchants before Square came along.

The call to action itself uses simple language that can be successful for many types of business. The word “get” is often highly motivating. The fact that Square doesn’t charge for its product is likely to be genuinely surprising to many prospects, which reinforces the value of the offer and makes it more tempting.

Between the minimal form (just three fields), the strong indicator of potential benefit (“Start accepting credit cards today”) and the great offer (the free Square card reader), this landing page/call to action combo is a winner.

Another example of a strong headline and a clear call to action above the fold of the website.

So, how does your website sell?

Share with me! If you can tick all the boxes, well done. If not, tackle each point one at a time and remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.

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16 Reasons Why People Leave Your Website

You’ve written some really compelling copy for your website. Your product images are polished. Your overall site design is professional. And thanks to marketing initiatives like these ones, you’re getting traffic to your site.

So why is it that so few of those visitors are converting into leads and customers?

I hear about issues like this every day. Unfortunately, converting web visitors isn’t as simple as the old mantra says: “If you build it, they will come.” Capturing conversions online takes a truly special combination of factors.

There are many opportunities to make mistakes that cost conversions on your website. If you’re having trouble getting buyers to stick, consider whether you're making any of the following mistakes to cause visitors to leave your website without converting.

16 Reasons People Leave Your Website

1) Your design is outdated.

It’s an unfortunate truth, but we all judge books by their covers. On his blog "Social Triggers,"Derek Halpern shared a fascinating study that backs up the impact a site’s design can have on its perceived trustworthiness.

In the study, psychologist and researcher Dr. Elizabeth Sillence asked participants to review websites on the subject of hypertension and then rate whether they trusted or distrusted the website. In a surprising turn of events, the study found that 94% of wary respondents attributed their uneasiness to the website’s design.

Design matters. So if your site still looks like something out of 1996 Geocities, it’s time for a professional facelift. (You can download HubSpot's ultimate guide to redesignin your website here.)

2) Your content is difficult to read.

On a related note, consider that design isn’t just about colors, images and graphics. The fonts you use, as well as the colors of your text and background, can determine how easily people can read and digest the content on your website. If it can’t be easily read, it’s simply not going to convert very well.

There are no hard-and-fast rules about which fonts to use and which to avoid -- except you should never, ever use Comic Sans. Instead, stick to high-contrast color combinations and clean, ornamentation-free serif or sans serif fonts for best results. Here are a few tips and ideason choosing the right fonts for your marketing.

As for font size, stick to larger fonts to give visitors a better experience whether they're on desktop or using a mobile device. For headlines, use a font size of 22 px or larger. For body copy, stick to 14 px or larger.

3) Your site relies on outdated plugins.

If you’ve got your site’s sales content buried in Flash files, you’re going to be left waiting a long time for users who have neither the time nor the inclination to install updated versions of this outdated plugin. Even YouTube has dropped the Flash object embeds in favor of the more modern HTML5 video player.

Instead, use HTML5 for all of your videos and animations. To give a better experience for users who can't or don't want to watch a video (and to help boost SEO), include a summary, notes, or a transcript of the video.

Remember, though, that plugins and add-ons are deprecated all the time. The fewer bells and whistles your site adds, the less time you’ll have to spend jumping on new technology trends.

4) You're overwhelming people with ads.

If your website is run on an ad-driven model, then removing them from your website entirely may not be an option. But just because you need to have ads doesn’t mean you need to have them everywhere.

Nielsen’s 2014 Trust in Advertising report revealed that survey participants trust nearly all forms of traditional advertising -- including newspaper ads, magazine ads, billboards, radio ads and infomercials -- more than they trust online banner ads. Here's the breakdown on the extent to which those surveyed trust different forms of advertising:

Image Credit: The Nielsen Company

Since trust is a key component to driving conversions, limit the number of ads you use and the locations where they’re displayed. Ads shouldn’t be the first thing visitors see, and they shouldn’t take up more of your site’s real estate than its actual content.

5) The videos on your site auto-play

I don’t know about you, but nothing makes me click a website’s “Back” button faster than a video that auto-plays. Today’s digital-savvy customers prefer to choose how and when they consume online content. Blasting at them without their consent is a quick way to drive potential customers from your website -- without a purchase.

6) Your navigation structure is unclear.

Raise your hand if this has ever happened to you: You arrive on a website looking for a specific piece of information, only to get caught in a seemingly endless maze of poorly laid-out navigation options.

Not only is unclear navigation bad for your on-site user experience, it’s bad for your SEO as well.

The golden rule of navigation is this: Think through your site’s setup as if you were your own customer. If you were totally new to your website, how would you expect to find the information organized? What steps would you take to find the information that’ll answer your questions?

Rearrange your navigation to take your user’s needs into account and you'll stop losing potential sales due to bad content organization. If you aren’t confident that you can rearrange your content according to consumer expectations, use a service like UserTesting (or even better, Drunk User Testing) to uncover potential trouble spots.

7) Your registration requirements are obtrusive.

Gated content is great for driving leads into a website sales funnel. But gating everything and protecting it with restrictive registration requirements will kill your conversion rate.

As you create registration opportunities, ask yourself if every field you add is necessary. If you find it hard to cut anything, remember that Expedia earned an extra $12 million by removing one single data field. (And for more tips on how long your landing page forms should be, read this blog post.)

8) Your site lacks personality.

Brand personality matters on your website and in your marketing campaigns.

The Millward Brown agency found that “there is a relationship between the way brands express themselves in different countries and the strength of the consumer relationships they generate.” Below is a chart of the specific words used to describe personality correlated with different countries around the globe:

Image Credit: Millward Brown

While the personality traits that are considered "ideal" vary from country to country, simply having an established personality is an essential part of a business’s success. If your website reads like anybody could have written it, you’re going to have a problem connecting with potential customers. Your sales will suffer without that connection.

(Want more tips on creating a brand identity? Read this blog post.)

9) Your site is slow to load.

Research from KISSmetrics reports that load times matter when it comes to website performance. Here are some key stats from their analysis:

• 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less.
• 40% abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.
• Even a one-second delay (or three seconds of waiting) decreases customer satisfaction by about 16%.

If you’ve put off optimizing your site’s load performance, put it at the top of your to-do list.Learn how to improve page load time here.

10) Your gated offers aren’t relevant or appealing.

Crafting a compelling offer is one thing, but is it relevant to your audience? If so, are you showing it off in a way that's appealing to visitors? If you see traffic patterns that indicate visitors are arriving on your landing pages and bouncing, there’s a good chance they aren’t connecting with the offer you’re pitching.

High-converting landing pages include a strong call-to-action that makes it clear to the visitor what the next step is -- and what to expect by taking that step. Read this blog post for tips on creating persuasive landing page content. You might also consider split testing your landing pages to see what resonates with your specific audience.

11) Your product's benefits aren't clear.

If you aren't sharing your product's features with your customers clearly on your website, then you certainly won't compel them to move down the sales funnel.

Consider the classic case of the original Apple iPod. Here are two different ways the iPod could've been featured on their website:

Image Credit: Help Scout

Apple’s early buyers didn’t care about 1GB or MP3s -- they cared about the ability to take thousands of songs with them wherever they went.

This is what’s referred to as selling benefits, rather than features. It’s a critically important concept to understand (and implement) as you attempt to diagnose conversion problems on your website.

12) You never give a call-to-action.

While this might seem like a no-brainer, research by Small Business Trends suggests that 80% of small B2B business websites lacked a call-to-action as recently as 2013. Crazy, right? They weren’t losing out on sales because their calls-to-action were poorly written. They missed out because they simply failed to ask for the sale.

Your customers won’t take action if you don’t prompt them to, so end every sales page, blog post, product page, and so on with a compelling and relevant call-to-action that'll encourage visitors to take action.

13) Your content or products don’t live up to your landing page’s promises.

In a post on the Crazy Egg blog, Cody Ray Miller writes about his experience visiting the website www.nissan.com. You might think that link would take you to the Nissan Motors website, right? But instead, it takes you to a computer parts website run by a family with the last name Nissan.

If you were looking for information about cars and landed on that website, would you stick around?

Of course not. And yet, that’s exactly what happens when you overpromise on your landing pages. Viewers get all hyped up, thinking they’ve found the perfect solution to their needs. When they arrive on your site and see find that the information there isn’t what they were expecting, their first click will probably be the “Back” button.

Don't over-promise and under-deliver or you'll see low conversion rates and get a reputation for baiting-and-switching your visitors.

14) Your site isn’t responsive.

Google's major mobile algorithm update is here, so if your site isn’t responsive to mobile devices, you'll likely lose out significantly in the organic search rankings.

That's not all, though: According to research gathered by Mobify, “30% of mobile shoppers abandon a transaction if the experience is not optimized for mobile.”

Transitioning to a responsive design can be a pain in the butt, but can you really afford to miss out on all that traffic and all those sales? Learn how to make your website responsive here.

15) You're not using exit intent technology.

Remember all those visitors hitting the “Back” button I mentioned earlier? There's hope for regaining their attention using exit intent technology programs. These are tools that track visitor mouse movement. If it appears the visitor is about to bounce, that visitor will be presents with a message or offer in a last-ditch effort to help them stay on the page.

In one instance, a company using this software to present a 10% off coupon to exiting visitors improved its overall conversion rate by 13%, resulting in 2,423 conversions that would have otherwise been lost that month. That's pretty powerful. Companies like Picreel offer exit intent technology that'll help you capture visitors before they leave your website.

16) Your site's been hacked.

The thought of your site being hacked without you even knowing might sound crazy. But according to Forbes contributor James Lyne, an estimated 30,000 sites are compromised every day. Many times, these hacks are sophisticated enough that the signs go unnoticed by all but the most observant of webmasters.

If you don’t have the time to pore over your code each day, consider a monitoring program like Sucuri to maintain that all important user trust that’s necessary for website sales and conversions.

By addressing these issues on your website, you should be see major gains in your website's performance. But these aren’t the only factors that can affect your ability to convert visitors into customers. If you have another tip on an issue you discovered that was causing visitors to leave your site without buying, leave a note describing both the challenge you faced and how you resolved it in the comments section below.

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